Saints without Halos
Saints without Halos: The Human Side of Mormon History
Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton
Unlike most Mormon histories, Saints without Halos is a treatment of the human, rather than institutional side of Mormon history. Through the fascinating experiences of seventeen Latter-day Saints, Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton sketch Mormonism from its earliest beginnings to modern times. These are Saints presented not as objects of veneration, but as “human beings who, like the rest of us, struggle to be worthy of the title Latter-day Saint.”
Two were apostles. One was an enthusiastic supporter and friend of Joseph Smith, who eventually left the main body of the Church to lead his own band to Texas. The other was a link in the chain of a renowned Mormon family whose positions in the leading councils of the church span virtually the entire history of Mormonism.
The other fifteen individuals, except for one colorful non-Mormon advocate, are “ordinary” Latter-day Saints—faithful members who helped realize the vision of their prophetic leaders: a personal friend of Joseph Smith, missionaries and converts, a plural wife, an Indian woman, a widowed immigrant, pioneers and philosophers, bishops and blacksmiths, and even a historian.
In this book, the authors of The Mormon Experience draw on their vast knowledge of Mormon diaries and other first-hand accounts to disclose the rich diversity of Mormonism as well as its unity of purpose.
ebook: $9.99
Leonard J. Arrington served as the first-ever academically credentialed Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1972 to 1982. Among his many books are Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints (1958) and Brigham Young: American Moses (1985), which won the Evans Biography Award. He is co-author with Davis Bitton of The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (1979). Arrington was the recipient of awards from the Mormon History Association and the Western History Association and taught at North Carolina State University, University of California at Los Angeles, Utah State University, and Brigham Young University. During his tenure at BYU, he was Lemuel Redd Professor of Western History and also director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History.
History
ISBN: 978-1-56085-362-6
